Monday, August 17, 2015
DNA Is Said to Solve a Mystery
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/us/dna-is-said-to-solve-a-mystery-of-warren-hardings-love-life.html?partner=EXCITE&ei=5043&_r=0
The New York Times
DNA Is Said to Solve a Mystery of Warren Harding’s Love Life
By PETER BAKER AUG. 12, 2015
WASHINGTON — She was denounced as a “degenerate” and a “pervert,” accused of lying for money and shamed for waging a “diabolical” campaign of falsehoods against the president’s family that tore away at his legacy.
Long before Lucy Mercer, Kay Summersby or Monica Lewinsky, there was Nan Britton, who scandalized a nation with stories of carnal adventures in a White House coat closet and endured a ferocious backlash for publicly claiming that she bore the love child of President Warren G. Harding.
Now nearly a century later, according to genealogists, new genetic tests confirm for the first time that Ms. Britton’s daughter, Elizabeth Ann Blaesing, was indeed Harding’s biological child. The tests have solved one of the enduring mysteries of presidential history and offer new insights into the secret life of America’s 29th president. At the least, they demonstrate how the march of technology is increasingly rewriting the nation’s history books.
The revelation has also roiled two families that have circled each other warily for 90 years, struggling with issues of rumor, truth and fidelity. Even now, members of the president’s family remain divided over the matter, with some still skeptical after a lifetime of denial and unhappy about cousins who chose to pursue the question. Some descendants of Ms. Britton remain resentful that it has taken this long for evidence to come out and for her credibility to be validated.
“It’s sort of Shakespearean and operatic,” said Dr. Peter Harding, a grandnephew of the president and one of those who instigated the DNA testing that confirmed the relationship to Ms. Britton’s offspring. “This story hangs over the whole presidential history because it was an unsolved mystery.”
The Nan Britton affair was the sensation of its age, a product of the jazzplaying, ginsoaked Roaring Twenties and a pivotal moment in the evolution of the modern White House. It was not the first time a president was accused of an extracurricular love life, but never before had a selfproclaimed presidential mistress gone public with a popular tellall book. The ensuing furor played out in newspapers, courtrooms and living rooms across the country.
While some historians dismissed Ms. Britton’s account, it remained part of popular lore. Pundits raised it as an analog after revelations of President Bill Clinton’s affair with Ms. Lewinsky. HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” made it a subplot a few years ago. The Library of Congress effectively recalled it last year when it released Harding’s love letters with another mistress, Carrie Phillips.
Ms. Britton, who was 31 years younger than Harding, had a harder time proving her relationship when she revealed it after his death because she had destroyed her own letters with him at his request and because his family insisted he was sterile.
As a boy growing up, Peter Harding said he believed the family line. “My father said this couldn’t have happened because President Harding had mumps as a kid and was infertile and the family really vilified Nan Britton,” said Dr. Harding, now 72 and a physician in Big Sur, Calif.
After finding Ms. Britton’s book, “The President’s Daughter,” among his father’s belongings, though, he concluded that the man described in it resembled the writer of the letters to Ms. Phillips, an expressive romantic who doted on women.
Dr. Harding and his cousin, Abigail Harding, decided to pursue the matter and made contact with James Blaesing, a grandson of Ms. Britton and son of the daughter she claimed to have conceived with the president. Testing by AncestryDNA, a division of Ancestry.com, the genealogical website, found that Mr. Blaesing was a second cousin to Peter and Abigail Harding, meaning that Elizabeth Ann Blaesing had to be President Harding’s daughter.
“We’re looking at the genetic scene to see if Warren Harding and Nan Britton had a baby together and all these signs are pointing to yes,” said Stephen Baloglu, an executive at Ancestry. “The technology that we’re using is at a level of specificity that there’s no need to do more DNA testing. This is the definitive answer.”
The testing also found that President Harding had no ancestors from subSaharan Africa, answering another question that has intrigued historians. When Harding ran for president in 1920, segregationist opponents claimed he had “black blood.”
Abigail Harding, 72, a retired high school biology teacher in Worthington, Ohio, said the Nan Britton question is resolved. “I have no doubts left,” she said. “When he’s related to me, he’s related to Peter, he’s related to a third cousin — there’s too many nails in the coffin, so to speak. I’m completely convinced.”
Still, other relatives withheld judgment. “I’m not questioning the accuracy of anybody’s tests or anything,” said Dr. Richard Harding, 69, another grandnephew and a child psychiatrist in Columbia, S.C. “But it’s still in my mind still to be proven.” If the tests are valid, he added, he welcomed the new family members. “I hope they’ll find their new place in history is meaningful and productive for them.”
James Robenalt, who wrote a book on Harding’s affair with Carrie Phillips that was skeptical of Ms. Britton’s claims, said he accepts the new evidence. “I’m very pleased that that’s the result just because that family deserves to be recognized,” he said.
Warren Gamaliel Harding was a newspaper publisher in Marion, Ohio, who won a Senate seat in 1914 and captured the presidency in 1920 promising to restore “normalcy” after World War I. He is often ranked low among American presidents because of the Teapot Dome corruption scandal that ensnared top advisers. But advocates argue he is underrated, noting that he advocated equal rights for AfricanAmericans, created the Bureau of the Budget and led international disarmament efforts.
Nan Britton grew up in Marion, where her father knew Harding and Harding’s sister was her schoolteacher. She was consumed with Harding, who was married but had no children and was seen by women of the time as attractive. Ms. Britton hung pictures of Harding on her bedroom wall and sought his help finding a job. Harding agreed to meet her in New York. In July 1917, at age 20, she “became Mr. Harding’s bride,” as she put it, during a New York hotel room assignation.
For six and a half years they maintained their affair, meeting wherever possible, including in Harding’s Senate office, where Ms. Britton wrote that they conceived Elizabeth Ann, born in October 1919. Harding never met his daughter but provided financial support, He and Ms. Britton continued their relationship after he became president, repairing to “a small closet in the anteroom” in the West Wing where, she wrote, they “made love.”
Ms. Britton was devastated when he died in office in 1923 at the age of 57 and more so when she discovered there was no provision to support their daughter. In need of money and shut out by Harding’s family, she wrote “The President’s Daughter” in 1927, inciting a fierce backlash from his supporters.
James Blaesing, her grandson, said Ms. Britton’s relationship with Harding was a love story and her family always believed her. “She loved him until the day she died,” he said. “When she talked about him, she would get the biggest smile on her face. She just loved this guy. He was everything.” Mr. Blaesing said the family lived with scorn for decades. They were followed, their house was broken into and items were stolen to try to prove the relationship was a lie. “I went through this growing up in school,” said Mr. Blaesing, 65, now a construction contractor in Portland, Ore. “They belittled him and her.”
The tests, he said, finally vindicate his grandmother. “I wanted to prove who she was and prove everyone wrong,” he said.
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/11/20081119.html
THE WHITE HOUSE
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
November 19, 2008
President Bush Attends Reopening of the National Museum of American History
National Museum of American History
Washington, D.C.
From 9/14/2002 ( at Overlake hospital in Bellevue Washington State the announced birth of Phoebe Gates the daughter of Microsoft Bill Gates the transvestite and Microsoft Bill Gates the 100% female gender as born and Microsoft Bill Gates the Soviet Union prostitute ) To 11/19/2008 is 2258 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 1/8/1972 ( premiere US TV movie "The Astronaut" ) is 2258 days
From 6/29/1995 ( the Mir space station docking of the United States space shuttle Atlantis orbiter vehicle mission STS-71 includes my biological brother United States Navy Fleet Admiral Thomas Reagan the spacecraft and mission commander and me Kerry Wayne Burgess the United States Marine Corps officer and United States STS-71 pilot astronaut ) To 11/19/2008 is 4892 days
4892 = 2446 + 2446
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 7/14/1972 ( premiere US film "Joe Kidd" ) is 2446 days
From 6/29/1995 ( the Mir space station docking of the United States space shuttle Atlantis orbiter vehicle mission STS-71 includes my biological brother United States Navy Fleet Admiral Thomas Reagan the spacecraft and mission commander and me Kerry Wayne Burgess the United States Marine Corps officer and United States STS-71 pilot astronaut ) To 11/19/2008 is 4892 days
4892 = 2446 + 2446
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 7/14/1972 ( premiere US film "The Wrath of God" ) is 2446 days
From 12/3/1951 ( Harry Truman - Statement by the President on Establishing the Committee on Government Contract Compliance ) To 12/20/1994 ( in Bosnia as Kerry Wayne Burgess the United States Marine Corps captain this day is my United States Navy Cross medal date of record ) is 15723 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 11/19/2008 is 15723 days
From 7/4/1976 ( at extreme personal risk to himself my biological brother Thomas Reagan the civilian and privately financed astronaut in his privately financed atom-pulse propulsion spaceship successfully intercepts the Comet Lucifer in the outer solar system and diverts it away from the planet Earth ) To 11/19/2008 is 11826 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 3/20/1998 ( premiere US film "Primary Colors" ) is 11826 days
From 7/16/1963 ( Phoebe Cates the United States Army veteran and the Harvard University graduate medical doctor and the world-famous actress and the wife of my biological brother Thomas Reagan ) To 8/2/2006 ( premiere US TV series episode "30 Days"::"Outsourcing" ) is 15723 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 11/19/2008 is 15723 days
From 9/24/1975 ( premiere US film "Three Days of the Condor" ) To 11/19/2008 is 12110 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 12/29/1998 ( Bill Clinton - Letter to Congressional Leaders Transmitting a Plan and Report on Reorganization of the Foreign Affairs Agencies ) is 12110 days
From 5/12/1932 ( the body of Charles Lindbergh Jr was found ) To 11/19/2008 is 27950 days
27950 = 13975 + 13975
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 2/6/2004 ( my final day working at Microsoft Corporation as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and the deputy director of the United States Marshals Service and the United States Marine Corps brigadier general circa 2004 ) is 13975 days
From 12/25/1991 ( as United States Marine Corps chief warrant officer Kerry Wayne Burgess I was prisoner of war in Croatia ) To 11/19/2008 is 6174 days
6174 = 3087 + 3087
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 4/16/1974 ( Richard Nixon - Memorandum About the Federal Summer Employment Program for Youth ) is 3087 days
From 12/25/1991 ( as United States Marine Corps chief warrant officer Kerry Wayne Burgess I was prisoner of war in Croatia ) To 11/19/2008 is 6174 days
6174 = 3087 + 3087
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 4/16/1974 ( premiere US TV movie "The Last Angry Man" ) is 3087 days
From 2/17/1909 ( Geronimo deceased ) To 3/24/1995 ( premiere US film "Major Payne" ) is 31446 days
31446 = 15723 + 15723
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 11/19/2008 is 15723 days
From 10/29/1955 ( premiere US film "So You Want to Be a V.P." ) To 11/19/2008 is 19380 days
19380 = 9690 + 9690
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 5/14/1992 ( as Kerry Wayne Burgess the United States Marine Corps chief warrant officer circa 1992 and United States chief test pilot I performed the first flight of the US Army and Boeing AH-64D Apache Longbow ) is 9690 days
From 12/20/1963 ( premiere US TV series episode "The Twilight Zone"::"Ninety Years Without Slumbering" ) To 11/19/2008 is 16406 days
16406 = 8203 + 8203
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 4/18/1988 ( the United States Navy Operation Praying Mantis - my biological brother US Navy Fleet Admiral Thomas Reagan and I US Navy FC2 Kerry Wayne Burgess are both at the same time onboard the United States Navy warship USS Wainwright CG 28 when it evaded a Harpoon anti-ship missile from hostile Iran-Bill Gates-Microsoft-George Bush-Axis of Evil-Soviet Union-Communist forces but 2 United States Marine Corps aviators launched from USS Wainwright CG 28 killed this day ) is 8203 days
From 4/18/1988 ( the United States Navy Operation Praying Mantis - my biological brother US Navy Fleet Admiral Thomas Reagan and I US Navy FC2 Kerry Wayne Burgess are both at the same time onboard the United States Navy warship USS Wainwright CG 28 when it evaded a Harpoon anti-ship missile from hostile Iran-Bill Gates-Microsoft-George Bush-Axis of Evil-Soviet Union-Communist forces but 2 United States Marine Corps aviators launched from USS Wainwright CG 28 killed this day ) To 11/19/2008 is 7520 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 6/5/1986 ( Ronald Reagan - Statement on Senate Approval of the United States Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia ) is 7520 days
From 8/30/1907 ( John William Mauchly ) To 10/3/1993 ( the Battle of Mogadishu Somalia begins ) is 31446 days
31446 = 15723 + 15723
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 11/19/2008 is 15723 days
From 6/16/1954 ( premiere US film "Them!" ) To 11/19/2008 is 19880 days
19880 = 9940 + 9940
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 1/19/1993 ( in Asheville North Carolina as United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess I was seriously wounded by gunfire when I returned fatal gunfire to a fugitive from United States federal justice who was another criminal sent by Bill Gates-Nazi-Microsoft-George Bush the cowardly violent criminal in another attempt to kill me the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) is 9940 days
From 10/6/1977 ( the first flight Soviet Union MiG-29 Fulcrum ) To 11/19/2008 is 11367 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 12/16/1996 ( premiere US TV movie "Marshal Law" ) is 11367 days
From 1/17/1991 ( the date of record of my United States Navy Medal of Honor as Kerry Wayne Burgess chief warrant officer United States Marine Corps circa 1991 also known as Matthew Kline for official duty and also known as Wayne Newman for official duty ) To 11/19/2008 is 6516 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 9/5/1983 ( Ronald Reagan - Address to the Nation on the Soviet Attack on a Korean Civilian Airliner ) is 6516 days
From 1/17/1991 ( RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 - the Persian Gulf War begins as scheduled severe criminal activity against the United States of America ) To 11/19/2008 is 6516 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 9/5/1983 ( Ronald Reagan - Address to the Nation on the Soviet Attack on a Korean Civilian Airliner ) is 6516 days
From 10/6/1959 ( at a Congressional subcomittee former game show contestants Herbert Stempel and James Snodgrass revealed that they had been supplied the answers in advance on the show Twenty-One ) To 10/23/2002 ( United States Public Law 107-248 legislated the creation of the United States Medal of Honor Flag ) is 15723 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 11/19/2008 is 15723 days
From 8/6/1996 ( the US NASA Mars rock annoucement ) To 11/19/2008 is 4488 days
4488 = 2244 + 2244
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 12/25/1971 ( George Walker Bush the purveyor of illegal drugs strictly for his personal profit including the trafficking of massive amounts of cocaine into the United States confined to federal prison in Mexico for illegally smuggling narcotics in Mexico ) is 2244 days
From 8/6/1996 ( Bill Clinton - Executive Order 13013 - Amending Executive Order No. 10163, The Armed Forces Reserve Medal ) To 11/19/2008 is 4488 days
4488 = 2244 + 2244
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 12/25/1971 ( George Walker Bush the purveyor of illegal drugs strictly for his personal profit including the trafficking of massive amounts of cocaine into the United States confined to federal prison in Mexico for illegally smuggling narcotics in Mexico ) is 2244 days
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=84948
The American Presidency Project
George W. Bush
XLIII President of the United States: 2001 - 2009
Remarks on the Reopening of the National Museum of American History
November 19, 2008
Thank you. Laura and I are thrilled to be here. We are honored you would invite us to reopen one of the country's great civic institutions, the Smithsonian's Museum of American History. This building is home to many of our national treasures. It is a reminder of our country's proud heritage. And today we're witnessing the beginning of an exciting new era in its history. And I would urge all our citizens who come to Washington, DC: Come to this fantastic place of learning.
Wayne, thank you for serving; proud to be with you. Roger Sant, the Chair of the Smithsonian Institute's Board of Regents, and Vicki. I appreciate Brent Glass, the Director. I want to thank Dirk Kempthorne; Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here. Jonathan Scharfem, Acting Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, as well as Congressman [Congresswoman] * Doris Matsui from California. I want to thank Governor Martin O'Malley of the great State of Maryland for coming here today. I am honored to be with Judy Woodruff, the esteemed master of ceremony--mistress of ceremony, MC. I thank David McCullough for joining us, a great historian and a fine American.
* White House correction.
Ever since President James K. Polk laid the Smithsonian's cornerstone in 1847, it has been one of our Nation's greatest centers of knowledge. And since it opened nearly 45 years ago, the Museum of American History has been one of the Smithsonian's most popular institutions.
The items on display here are as diverse as our Nation. Visitors can see George Washington's military uniform, one of Thomas Edison's early lightbulbs, the desk on which Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, even Muhammad Ali's boxing gloves, which he modestly predicted would become the most famous thing in this building. [Laughter]
Another item on display here is one of our Nation's proudest symbols of patriotism. The icon's fame dates to the War of 1812. In that conflict, the British Navy bombarded Baltimore's Fort McHenry with rockets and mortar fire. And as the battle raged, a young American was detained on a ship in Baltimore Harbor, unable to join the fight. The next morning, he was anxious to see whether his country had resisted the invasion. He discovered the answer when he saw the stars and stripes of the United States waving defiantly above Fort McHenry.
That young American, of course, was Francis Scott Key. He referred to the moment he saw the flag as an "hour of deliverance and joyful triumph." He recorded those emotions in a poem called "The Star-Spangled Banner." Today, nearly two centuries after they were composed, his words are written on the heart of every American and written into our law as our country's national anthem. And the flag that inspired them is preserved here, thanks to the generosity of some fine citizens, to remind us of the sacrifices that have been made to ensure our freedom.
There have been hours in our Nation's history when that promise of freedom looked uncertain. One of them took place 145 years ago today, when President Abraham Lincoln arrived in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to dedicate a cemetery at one of the Civil War's bloodiest battlefields. By that day, the war had raged for more than 2 1/2 years and claimed hundreds of thousands of casualties. Many were convinced that a peace that preserved slavery would be better than a war that was pitting brother against brother. President Lincoln understood that liberty is a gift given by the Almighty, and that peace must not be purchased with injustice.
That day, President Lincoln called the Nation together in the pursuit of a new birth of freedom. He urged Americans to honor the dead by carrying out the cause for which they gave their lives. With only 10 sentences, he strengthened the bonds of our Union, and rededicated our Nation to the proposition that all men are created equal.
At the time, President Lincoln said that the world would "little note nor long remember" his words. The verdict of history has been quite different. Over the years, the Gettysburg Address has been memorized by generations of schoolchildren--including me and Laura--stands as the greatest Presidential speech of all time.
For nearly 50 years, one of the only handwritten copies of this speech has been kept at the White House. For the next several weeks, it will be on display here at the Museum of American History. And Laura and I are delighted that this important piece of our country's heritage will be available for all to see.
Among those inspired by the principles in the Gettysburg Address were four African American college students in Greensboro, North Carolina. In 1960, they sat at a lunch counter inside a Woolworth's department store and asked to be served. Their request was denied, because the counter was designated as "whites only." When they were asked to leave, those brave students refused to give up their seats. The single act of courage helped power a national movement that culminated with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And today, that lunch counter is preserved here at the Smithsonian, in an honored location just down the hall from the Gettysburg Address.
In the lives of Francis Scott Key, Abraham Lincoln, and those brave students in Greensboro, we see the best of America. We see men and women of character who refused to surrender to adversity. We see hope, courage, and a devotion to universal values. And we see a nation constantly moving toward greater freedom and greater opportunity.
Throughout our history, these ideals have called out to those beyond our shores. They have beckoned those who love liberty from every nation. They have made countless generations of men and women across the world long for the pride that comes with calling yourself an American citizen. Today I'm delighted to congratulate five of you who will be taking your oath of citizenship in just a few moments. Though you are originally from France, Germany, Guyana, Lebanon, and Peru, today you're becoming members of the American family. We welcome you with open arms. I will be proud to call you fellow citizen.
The Museum of American History is a wonderful place to begin your journey as an American. These halls reflect both the duties and privileges of citizenship. They remind us that America's highest ideals have always required brave defenders. They remind us that our liberty is a precious gift from God.
Thank you for having Laura and me here. May God continue to bless the United States of America.
Note: The President spoke at 10:16 a.m.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=53167
The American Presidency Project
William J. Clinton
XLII President of the United States: 1993-2001
Executive Order 13013 - Amending Executive Order No. 10163, The Armed Forces Reserve Medal
August 6, 1996
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including my authority as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, it is hereby ordered that Executive Order No. 10163 as amended, is further amended by striking out sections 3 and 4 and inserting in lieu thereof the following new sections 3 and 4:
"3. The Armed Forces Reserve Medal may be awarded to members or former members of the reserve components of the Armed Forces of the United States who meet one or more of the following three criteria.
a. The member has completed a total of 10 years of honorable service in one or more of such reserve components, including annual active duty and inactive duty training as required by appropriate regulations, provided that (1) such 10 years of service was performed within a period of 12 consecutive years, (2) such service shall not include service in a regular component of the armed forces, including the Coast Guard, but (A) service in a reserve component that is concurrent, in whole or in part, with service in a regular component of the armed forces shall be included in computing the required 10 years of reserve service, and (B) any period of time during which reserve service is interrupted by service in a regular component of the armed forces shall be excluded in computing, and shall not be considered a break in, the said period of 12 consecutive years, and (3) such service shall not include service for which the Naval Reserve Medal or the Marine Corps Reserve Medal has been or may be awarded.
b. On or after August 1, 1990, the member was called to active duty and served under sections 12301(a), 12302, 12304, 12406 (formerly sections 672(a), 673, 673b, 3500, and 8500) and Chapter 15 of title 10, United States Code, or, in the case of the United States Coast Guard Reserve, section 712 of title 14, United States Code.
c. On or after August 1, 1990, the member volunteered and served on active duty in support of specific U.S. military operations or contingencies designated by the Secretary of Defense.
4. Not more than one Armed Forces Reserve Medal may be awarded to any one person. The member shall receive the medal with the distinctive design of the reserve component with which the person served at the time of award or in which such person last served. The medal is awarded with the appropriate appurtenance that denotes the manner in which the award was earned, either through completion of 10 years of service, mobilization, or volunteering for, and serving on, active duty in support of operations or contingencies designated by the Secretary of Defense. For each succeeding mobilization, volunteering for, and serving on, active duty in support of operations or contingencies, or 10-year period of service as above described, and a suitable appurtenance may be awarded, to be worn with the medal in accordance with appropriate regulations."
William J. Clinton
The White House,
August 6, 1996.
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/11/20081119.html
THE WHITE HOUSE
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
November 19, 2008
President Bush Attends Reopening of the National Museum of American History
National Museum of American History
Washington, D.C.
when that promise of freedom looked uncertain.
http://www.tv.com/shows/the-simpsons/a-star-is-torn-405065/trivia/
tv.com
The Simpsons Season 16 Episode 18
A Star Is Torn
Aired Sunday 8:00 PM May 08, 2005 on FOX
Quotes
Apu: No change without purchase.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_1959
October 1959
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following events occurred in October 1959:
October 6, 1959 (Tuesday)
At a Congressional subcomittee, former game show contestants Herbert Stempel and James Snodgrass revealed that they had been supplied the answers in advance on the show Twenty-One. The two would be portrayed in the film Quiz Show by John Turturro and Douglas McGrath, respectively, in 1994.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/07/28/all-the-answers
THE NEW YORKER
Personal History JULY 28, 2008 ISSUE
All the Answers
The quiz-show scandals—and the aftermath.
BY CHARLES VAN DOREN
For fourteen weeks in the winter and spring of 1956-57, I came into millions of American homes, stood in a supposedly soundproof booth, and answered difficult questions. I was considered well spoken, well educated, handsome—the very image of a young man that parents would like their son to be. I was also thought to be the ideal teacher, which is to say patient, thoughtful, trustworthy, caring. In addition, I was making a small fortune. And then—well, this is what happened:
I don’t remember the dinner clearly, except that at some point in the early fall of 1956 I was talking with a man named Albert Freedman, who knew a friend of mine. Freedman was about my age, suave and well dressed—certainly no bohemian, like most of my friends. He asked me what I thought of “Tic Tac Dough.”
I didn’t have a television set in those days, but I knew that Al Freedman was in the TV business. And I’d certainly heard about the game shows, where people could win a lot of money. Al told me that contestants on “The $64,000 Question” could win that amount and on some shows they could win even more.
“Your father’s a professor at Columbia?” he asked, and, when I nodded, he asked if I was, too.
I told him that I was an instructor of English—a long way from being a professor. I was not comfortable talking about myself, especially when he asked me how much an instructor of English made. When I told him, he just looked at me.
Later, I asked my friend to tell me more about Freedman, and she said that he was a producer for Jack Barry and Dan Enright, who created shows like “Tic Tac Dough.” Freedman called me a few days later. When I learned what he wanted, I telephoned Gerry—Geraldine Bernstein, the young woman I had been dating and whom I married six months later.
I told her that Al had persuaded me to take a test and that, depending on how I did, they might want me for a new show called “Twenty-One,” which was structured like blackjack. “The winner gets quite a bit,” I said. “The guy who’s on the show now has already won something like twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“Promise me you won’t agree to do this without talking to me first,” I remember her saying.
“O.K., I promise. They probably won’t ask me.”
They did—at least, Al Freedman did. He called me and told me that his job was on the line. A man named Herb Stempel was winning week after week, but he wasn’t popular and the ratings were suffering.
“They want me to find a contestant who can beat Herb Stempel,” Al said. “It might be you.”
It wasn’t hard to guess why Al was interested in me. My father was Mark Van Doren, a poet and critic and, as Al Freedman knew, a legendary teacher. My uncle Carl, his oldest brother, had been a professor of American literature at Columbia. In 1912, Carl had married Irita Bradford, who not long afterward was named the book-review editor of the New York Herald Tribune. Carl resigned his Columbia professorship in order to pursue a writing career, which included winning a Pulitzer Prize for biography (of Benjamin Franklin); he helped my father to become a teacher of literature at Columbia, too. By 1956, Carl was dead and my father was close to retirement, after nearly forty years.
The first time Al called, he asked me to come to his apartment. When I arrived, he seemed nervous. I wondered what I was getting into.
Right away, he said, “You remember I told you about this fellow Stempel? Well, the sponsors want him to be beaten. He’ll walk away with a bundle, but they want somebody more sympathetic.”
“Do they have a right to do that?”
“Hey, come off it, Charlie. Don’t be naïve.” And he launched into his argument—that, when all was said and done, these game shows were mere entertainment. “Even Shakespeare is entertainment,” he said, although he conceded that the shows, unlike the plays, were presented as the real thing.
Al played an episode of “Twenty-One” for me, in which Stempel seemed very sure of himself. His answers were obviously based on genuine knowledge. I say “obviously,” although I realized that I couldn’t be certain. How would anyone know?
Stempel’s posture and gestures were awkward, his clothes were too tight—he seemed almost to be choking in his shirt—and his speech was wooden. I remembered Al’s remark that I might have a good chance against him, and then he came right out and said it: “I’ve thought about it, Charlie, and I’ve decided you should be the person to beat Stempel. And I’ll help you do it.” He held up his hand. “I swear to you, no one will ever know. It will be just between you and me. Jack Barry”—the show’s host—“won’t know and Dan Enright won’t, either. Stempel won’t know—I’ve got a way to handle that. The sponsors won’t know—anyway, they’ll be so happy they won’t give a damn. And the audience will never know, because I won’t tell them, and you won’t, either.”
He suggested that I could make at least eight thousand dollars, maybe a good deal more. I was guaranteed a thousand dollars for the first show.
“How would you do it?”
“Jack would ask you a question you could answer and Stempel couldn’t.”
I leaned my elbows on the table, resting my head in my hands. He was telling me, in so many words, that the show was fixed. “I don’t know,” I said again. “When would this be?”
A few days later, I took Gerry to dinner at Steak au Pommes Frites, the midtown restaurant where we’d had our first date. We drank some wine and then I told her. She didn’t say much; she’s a woman of few, choice words. But she didn’t like any of it.
My first appearance on “Twenty-One” was on November 28, 1956. I must have put the whole thing out of my mind, but about a week after my conversation with Freedman I suddenly found myself in the studio, with the red light glowing above the camera, totally unaware that I was being watched by millions of people. Herb Stempel by then had been on the show for six straight weeks and had won some seventy thousand dollars. You can “quit right now,” Jack Barry was saying to Stempel, in a voice practiced in arousing suspense, “and a check will be waiting for you, or you can decide to continue playing.”
Barry then introduced me: “He teaches music at Columbia University, and was a student at Cambridge University, in England . . . and his hobby is playing the piano in chamber-music groups.”
Barry was reading from a “continuity card” written in haste. In fact, I played the piano only clumsily and I taught literature. There was no time for corrections, I knew; Al had stressed this. Anyway, Barry was racing ahead, asking me if I was “related in any way to Mark Van Doren, up at Columbia, the famous writer.” Papa, forgive me! Mama, forgive me! Uncle Carl, forgive me! I’ve remembered that moment for more than fifty years.
Al had given me my instructions. My understanding was that I was to reach seventeen points in the first round, twenty-one in the second—at which point I’d defeat Herb Stempel. To my astonishment, both Stempel and I reached twenty-one points in the second round. So bells rang, commercials were read, and both of us agreed to come back a week later.
It was then—on December 5, 1956—that I “beat” Herb Stempel and began my rise to celebrity. I learned later that the question Stempel missed was one that he could have answered easily. But they had him. If he failed to go along with his script, he could lose a lot of the money he had already “won.”
Each week, Stempel had been told what to do: how many points to choose, how to deliver his answers. He was to pat his brow (it was hot in those glass booths) but not rub it, to avoid smearing his makeup. In addition, he was instructed to get a Marines-type “whitewall” haircut, to wear an ill-fitting suit (it had belonged to his deceased father-in-law), and to describe himself as a penurious student at City College. In fact, he was a Marines veteran married to a woman of some means who once appeared on the set wearing a Persian-lamb coat and was quickly spirited away so that she wouldn’t blow his cover.
Stempel was also told to wear a six-dollar wristwatch that “ticked away like an alarm clock,” as he later testified, and was audible when he stood sweating in the booth, earphones supposedly damping all outside sound. Once, he wore a new suit and had let his hair grow out, for which he was severely chastised by Enright. As Enright apparently believed, a successful game show needed two distinct personalities, one unsympathetic and unattractive, the other the opposite.
I continued to appear on “Twenty-One” until March 11, 1957. During those four months, Freedman never stopped coaching me, and I came to see just how carefully controlled the show was. In our sessions, he would ask me questions, I would answer them—and then he would tell me how to answer them: pause here; add this or that remark or aside; always seem to be worried, anxious; never answer too quickly, let the suspense build up. One January night, I was asked to give the nicknames of several Second World War airplanes, and in February I was asked to name the seven Prime Ministers of Britain between the world wars. A critic later wrote that mine “was a remarkable and seductive performance.” Toward the end, my face appeared on the cover of Time (with earphones superimposed on my head), and I was seen in public with movie starlets (the dates were arranged by Barry and Enright); a couple of women found out where I lived and came to my door.
For several weeks, the programs had ended in ties between me and a lawyer named Vivienne Nearing. At one point, it looked as if I could have won more than a hundred and fifty thousand dollars—except I couldn’t, because Al had informed me that I would lose to her. On the evening of March 11th, Jack Barry asked both of us to name the kings of Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Jordan, Iraq, and Belgium. According to our covert script, Nearing knew the answers and I didn’t. For years after that, people enjoyed asking me if I knew the name of the one I missed—the king of Belgium.
A photograph of me writing the figure “$128,000” on a blackboard was widely published. I deposited the net amount (a little less than that) and began to try to understand the life I’d created. Part of it was going to work for the National Broadcasting Company, which was willing to sign me to a three-year contract as a consultant on public-service and educational broadcasting, at an annual rate of fifty thousand dollars.
One day in the spring of 1957, shortly after Gerry and I were married, my father and I had a conversation. We were walking slowly down the road from his house, a road lined with stone walls on each side. At that time, our neighbor pastured heifers and dry cows—pregnant cows waiting to deliver—in the nearby fields. When we walked at night, the cows, curious about us, would breathe and snuffle, sometimes scaring our city friends.
“I’ve never asked you about this whole experience, Charlie,” Dad said. He was dressed in overalls, denim shirt, and boots, like the farmers he was descended from. In New York, he was an elegant figure, but this was the father I loved best. “But I get the impression you’re not too comfortable with your new fame—I mean, the way the quiz show may have changed your life. You have many opportunities now that you might never have had before. But I’ve wondered if they’re good—for you, being the man you are, or the man I think you are.”
I didn’t know what to say, because I suddenly sensed that he knew the truth about the show. I had thought of telling him, but I hadn’t been able to.
As we walked on, he said, “You know, I’ve never been certain you wanted to live my life over again—be a professor at Columbia or anywhere.” He mentioned the contract I had with NBC. “I know it’s tempting, but it might not be the right thing for you, either.” He brought up Mortimer J. Adler, a family friend who was then on the board of editors at the Encyclopædia Britannica, and said that Adler had talked about making me editor-in-chief of the Britannica.
“You might or you might not want to take that on,” he said. “Or you might just want to be a writer. You could live for years on the money you’ve won, couldn’t you?”
I had lived in Paris for a time, and Dad recalled how happy I had seemed then. He mentioned a novel I had worked on—“You somehow lost the thread of it,” he said. “You and Gerry could go to Paris.” And he added, “You can do anything you want, Charlie. I wish you knew that.”
“I don’t?”
“No, you don’t. You’re now one of the most famous people in the country—much more famous than I ever was.” He quoted Mark Twain—“You surprised everybody, and astonished the rest”—and urged me to “wipe the slate clean, start over.”
“You think the slate is dirty?” I couldn’t look at him.
We walked along for a while. Then he said, “It’s none of my business. Dirty or not—and I don’t know what ‘dirty’ would be—the fact is you’re caught up in something you may not really want.” That was as direct as he got that day. “Sometimes I think you’re having a lot of fun, other times you seem sad. I think turning your back on all of it might make you really happy.”
Tears came. “Dad,” I said, “I’m sorry, but it’s just not possible.”
“Why not possible?”
“I’m afraid there’s no way out anymore. In a way . . . I think I’d like to have done what you describe. As far as fame is concerned, you know as well as I do that celebrity isn’t the same as fame.” Finally, I said, “Oh, shit, Dad, I wish I were . . . free to do this.” My father and I never talked about it again.
NBC News tried hard to find work for me, as a writer of radio newsbreaks, for example, but I wasn’t very good at it. In the summer of 1958, they assigned me to the White House.
This was a strange experience. NBC’s old Washington hands weren’t welcoming. After all, here was this neophyte who was probably being paid more than they were but who didn’t know how to do the simplest things. To punish me, they let me flounder unless it would make them look bad. They couldn’t always tell in advance. For example, they asked me to go to the airport and interview John Foster Dulles on his return from some international conference—not an important story, or they would have sent someone else. I managed to be on the steps when the Secretary of State emerged from his plane, but I was wearing sunglasses, because the summer sun was in my eyes. He glared at me and very brusquely answered my carefully composed questions, then pushed past. When I asked my bureau chief what I’d done wrong, he said, “You damn fool, you don’t wear sunglasses when you speak to Mr. Dulles.” What made it all worse was that I had to be away from home during the week; our daughter, Elizabeth, was born that summer, and I missed my young family.
I fared better doing segments for Dave Garroway’s “Wide Wide World” show, a Sunday-afternoon cultural program. I soon became a semi-regular on this program, appearing once a month in place of Garroway. Some of “my” shows were pretty good, and the arrangement led to Garroway’s accepting me as a regular on “Today.” (Garroway, a television pioneer, was the first host—and star—of “Today.”) I was awkward at first, but before long Dave gave me a daily five-minute spot at the top of the hour in which to report on cultural and literary events; I read a great poem or two every Friday morning and talked about its author. Viewers liked this; so did Dave.
Being on “Today” meant getting up every weekday morning at five o’clock, appearing on the show for two hours, writing my spot for the next day, and then taking the subway to Columbia to teach, where my sudden celebrity seemed to impress no one. I was busy but also relatively content. I would have been more content if I’d been able to escape the consequences of what I’d done on “Twenty-One.”
In the summer of 1958, stories appeared in the New York Post and later in the Hearst newspapers—the Daily Mirror and the Journal-American—raising questions about the quiz shows. People who knew the entertainment business didn’t have much doubt about what was going on, although they didn’t speak out. Why would they? At the height of the boom, there were as many as twenty-four prime-time shows, each giving away significant sums, attracting large audiences, and producing large profits for the sponsors.
One day, Al Freedman called me and invited me to lunch. I hadn’t seen him since my last game-show appearance. When I asked about the rumors (particularly the ones about “Twenty-One”), he told me not to worry—even though he might have to go down to the District Attorney’s office to answer questions. “Of course I won’t tell them,” he said. “Nobody will—Jack or Dan or me. We’re the only ones who know about it.”
I was having trouble swallowing my food. “I didn’t know Jack knew about it.”
“He didn’t really know,” Al said, or something to that effect. He looked embarrassed. “It’s not anything. They’re partners, of course—close.”
Then he talked about Herb Stempel. “Enright says he’s crazy. He knows some things about him . . . psychiatric treatment, threats, all sorts of things.” He looked me in the eye. “It’ll be O.K. Whatever happens—I won’t say a word.” He waited, and, as I recall, he said, “There’s a lot at stake. Jack and Dan are selling the company to NBC. I don’t know the details, but I think there’s a couple of million dollars. . . .” He paused; he clearly wanted to be sure that I was dependable—and he surely didn’t want me to know that anyone else was talking. “They’re counting on you,” he said.
Soon enough, in October of 1958, the call came: Joseph Stone, a Manhattan Assistant District Attorney, wanted to ask me a few questions. They wanted me to come downtown—I can’t remember the venue, but I remember that it made me very uneasy.
My meeting with Stone, who seemed to be in charge of a quiz-show investigation, was a disaster. I was seated in a chair with a light in my eyes; Stone and three or four other men sat or stood about ten feet away. I later tried to write down much of what Stone asked me, beginning with questions about the interview in Time from a year earlier. Was I telling the truth when I talked to the reporter?
I hesitated, trying to remember everything I’d said. “I left out some things that were none of his business.”
“I’m interested in the things you didn’t leave out, the things you said,” Stone said. “For example, how you got on that show, ‘Twenty-One.’ ”
He had read in Time about the tests I’d taken, and wanted to know who’d contacted me. I told him about Al Freedman, and how we’d met during dinner with a mutual friend.
“Did Al Freedman say you had done very well on the test, and that was why Barry and Enright wanted you to try out for the show?”
“Yes.”
“Did Freedman say only one person had ever done better?”
I didn’t remember saying that to the reporter. I shook my head.
“I’m going to repeat my question. Did he say only one person had ever done better on that second test?”
“Maybe he did. I’m not sure.”
“He did say that, Mr. Van Doren. Thank you for trying to remember. Now, what I want to know is, did he tell you the name of the person—the only person—who had done better than you?”
The room was hot and I had kept my suit jacket on. Stone and the others were in shirtsleeves. I could feel the sweat trickling down from my armpits. I told Stone that if Freedman had said that, he probably would have named Herb Stempel.
Stone said that I must have known a lot of facts in order to win more than a hundred thousand dollars on “Twenty-One,” and I told him that I was lucky. With the bright light in my eyes, it was hard to see Stone’s face.
“I want to go back to the time when Freedman said the only person who had done better than you on the test was Herb Stempel. Did he also say that you would not be able to beat Stempel?”
“He said it would be hard.”
“Did he also say you would need a lot of luck to beat him?”
“I guess so.”
“I don’t believe he said that, Mr. Van Doren. What did he actually say? I want you to think very hard.”
“I’m trying.” My lips were dry.
“Did he say you would need help?”
I looked up, squinting in the lights, which seemed brighter than ever.
“No,” I said.
Stone’s grilling went on for an hour or so after that. I never admitted that I had received help. Finally, Stone said that I was free to go. I’ll never forget his last words: “You can lie to me, but I’m not going to let you lie to the grand jury.” The grand jury was being convened, Stone told me, and I would have to testify.
I rose unsteadily and walked out of the room. I suppose that, at the time, I hated him for making me feel like a criminal; he probably saw me as an arrogant liar. I have often wondered what would have happened if I had told the truth. When I went before the grand jury, I wasn’t sure what I would say. When I looked at the jurors’ faces, I saw that the foreman was a senior professor at Columbia, a man I knew by sight. And I panicked, thinking that if I told him the truth I would in effect be telling everyone at the university. So I lied. This was, of course, folly, since I had to tell the story anyway—to everyone, not just to him.
Many years later, Stone wrote to me asking me to help him publish a book about the quiz-show scandal. (The book was published in 1992.) He said that he’d never meant to hurt me and in fact had tried to protect me. I threw his letter away and never answered it.
One morning in August, 1959, I met Richard Goodwin, an investigator for a subcommittee of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. By then, I had been on “Today” for more than a year. I had just come off the set at the end of that morning’s show—in fact, I was still at the desk, looking at notes for a piece I wanted to do the next day. What Goodwin said scared me. He told me that his subcommittee planned to hold hearings on the matter of the television quiz shows; clearly, the grand jury’s work had made its way to Washington. Goodwin opened a folder and pointed to part of a transcript of the grand-jury proceedings. In the page or two that I read, Herb Stempel was testifying. I had thought the testimony was sealed, but evidently not.
He went on to tell me that my testimony contradicted what Stempel said and, worse, that Freedman and Enright had returned to the grand jury and confirmed what Stempel had said.
I had read something about this in the newspapers, but I hadn’t thought much about it, foolishly believing that it had nothing to do with me. Goodwin glanced around at the busy office. “Is there a place where we could talk?”
Dave Garroway was standing near the door, waiting for me to go to the daily story conference. I asked him if I could come later. “There’s this guy—I have to talk to him for a few minutes,” I said. Dave looked only mildly curious.
We found an empty office and I shut the door. There was a table and a couple of chairs. “Do you want to read any more?” Goodwin asked, pointing to the transcript.
I shook my head. I was surprised to learn that Freedman had returned to the grand jury and changed his testimony; I didn’t know you could do that. Goodwin told me that Freedman and Enright had wanted to warn me but were told that they couldn’t. Goodwin also told me that I wasn’t the only one who had lied. From all that he said, I realized that the committee wanted my story to come out at hearings in Washington. Before Goodwin left, he said, somewhat mysteriously, “I can only say it would be best for you, Professor Van Doren, if you say nothing to anybody.” To this day, I don’t understand what he meant. We shook hands and I told him the easiest way to get out of the building.
I went to the story conference but I couldn’t keep my mind on what was going on. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I have to get home.” I said that our daughter had an earache and Gerry wanted me there. Garroway told me to go ahead.
The news broke a month later—September, 1959—and the first sign of what it meant to me, as I recall, was a remark made by Dick Rubin, my new agent. I’d been waiting to see if NBC wanted to renew my contract. I asked Rubin what was going on.
“Of course they’re gonna renew. They’re just waitin’ till this stuff blows over.” He glanced at me. “There’s no problem, is there?”
But it was clear that NBC was growing nervous. When I met with some of the executives, they reminded me that a year earlier, on “Today,” I’d said that I didn’t know about any funny business on any quiz show. Probably they realized then that I wasn’t telling the truth, even when I declared—privately, of course—that I had been offered help by Al Freedman but had refused it.
The congressional hearings began on Tuesday, October 6, 1959, in the caucus room of the Old House Office Building. My turn came on Monday, November 2nd. I had written a statement and showed it to my father. “I’ll go with you,” he said, and he and Gerry accompanied me to Washington.
I asked permission to read my statement. In it, I told the entire story, for the first time. The committee members asked a few questions, but there was really not much else to say, and they told me that I was free to go.
When I stepped out the door of the caucus room, I saw a large crowd—members of the press, photographers, and bystanders. I realized that there was no way to avoid repeating my testimony. I was, I said, “foolish, naïve, prideful, and avaricious,” and added, “I have deceived my friends, and I had millions of them.” After that, Gerry, my father, and I made our way to Union Station, where we caught a train to New York. We arrived home in the early evening and were met outside our house by, among many others, a reporter who informed us, first, that NBC was going to fire me, and, second, that Columbia had accepted my resignation. All I could say was that I wasn’t surprised.
The next afternoon, Dave Garroway had to tape a news report on my shame. I didn’t hear the broadcast the following morning, but I was told that he had been genuinely upset—he couldn’t finish the broadcast, and had to turn it over to his co-hosts. We wrote to each other, but I have no recollection of what our letters said, and after that we fell out of touch. That week, Gerry went alone to Columbia to pick up a few of my personal things, and I didn’t go back to the campus for twenty-three years—until the day that my son graduated.
Along with Vivienne Nearing and eight others, I later pleaded guilty to second-degree perjury, a misdemeanor, for lying to the grand jury about getting answers from producers. The six weeks between my confession and Christmas of that year, 1959, were mostly agony.
But a small gift from my father helped me through it. He had wrapped a square box in tissue paper, sealed with Scotch tape. The box contained a gyroscopic compass, the kind you can start spinning and put on the edge of a glass, where it will stay upright till the spinning stops. A card in the box read, “May this be for you the whirligig of time that brings in his revenges.” I knew the quotation. It’s from “Twelfth Night.” Feste, the mean-spirited clown, has been unmasked, but those are his last words, thrown over his shoulder. The play’s audience knows that somehow he will survive and live to taunt some other master. I didn’t ask my father what he had meant by it, because I knew he was saying that I, too, would survive and somehow find a way back. I just hugged him and said, “Thank you, Papa.”
By the end of 1959, thanks to the intercession of a former college roommate, I would set off on a new career—at the Encyclopædia Britannica, in Chicago. I would earn about twenty per cent of what I’d been getting with NBC, but that was all right with me.
In 1965, we moved to Chicago, the site of the Britannica headquarters. (By then, we’d had a second child, John, who was born in 1962.) We stayed in Chicago for seventeen years, during which I got the title “vice-president of editorial” and wrote and edited a number of books, both by myself and with Mortimer Adler; one of these was a new edition of Adler’s immensely popular “How to Read a Book.” In 1982, when I was fifty-six, I retired. I had a contract for another book, and it was followed by still another, “A History of Knowledge.”
One of the best things about writing is that it’s private. I can sit with my thoughts without having to respond to people who say, “Aren’t you Charles Van Doren?” Well, that’s my name, I say to myself, but I’m not who you think I am—or, at least, I don’t want to be. It’s been hard to get away, partly because the man who cheated on “Twenty-One” is still part of me.
One day in the spring of 1990, a man named Julian Krainin appeared at the door of a small conch cottage we had bought and renovated in Key West. He was affable; he had come to Florida to visit his parents, he told us, and had drifted down the Keys. He said that he’d learned that I lived there and wanted to see me. After we had chatted for a few minutes, he came to the point of his visit: he told me that a production company was thinking of doing a television show about the quiz-show affair, and he guessed they’d want to talk to me.
For more than thirty years, I had refused to be interviewed, and I told him that I hadn’t changed my mind. He said that the program would be coming from WGBH, in Boston, one of the leading public-television stations, and that he was a documentary filmmaker. Also, he had some advice: “I’ve found that if an important figure in a documentary refuses to coöperate, it leaves the producers free to say . . . not just whatever they want but maybe some things he’d prefer they didn’t say.”
Krainin was certainly skilled in the art of journalistic seduction. “Have you ever thought of returning to television, Charles?” he asked. “I think you have a lot to offer.” He went on to mention two popular public-television series—James Burke’s “Connections” and Jacob Bronowski’s “The Ascent of Man”—with the suggestion that I might be the host of a series, too. I was being drawn in, and we chatted until Gerry arrived with a pitcher of lemonade and some cookies. “What were you two talking about?” she asked.
I made a joke of it: “My going back on TV as a kind of idiot savant.” I laughed, but she didn’t. I saw the dismay in her eyes. “There’s no chance of Charlie’s doing that,” she said.
Without looking at Gerry, I told Krainin that I knew something about the history of philosophy, and even sketched out a possible series on the subject. “Think of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, Bacon, Locke, Hume, Voltaire, Jefferson, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche,” I said. “That’s thirteen right there.”
Krainin brightened. Gerry was silent, her lips compressed. “That’s very interesting,” Krainin said. When he was gone, Gerry and I walked down Simonton to Catherine, across to Frances, through the cemetery to Angela, and home again. She said nothing at first.
“What do you think of that?” I asked finally.
“I think you’re being foolish.”
Krainin called two weeks later. He sounded breathless, and told me that the “people” in Boston wanted an outline from me. He said he’d pass it on to them, and after discussing the weather in New England he brought up the other program.
My program wasn’t a go; I don’t suppose it ever had a chance. Deep down I believed that the two were connected—and I still do. (I also know that Krainin has a different recollection about our first conversations.) “The Quiz Show Scandal,” written and co-produced by Julian Krainin for “American Experience,” aired on WGBH in 1992. At the end, they thanked a list of people. Although I had done nothing, I was at the top of the list.
The program was pretty good. I learned some things I hadn’t known, one of which was that about a hundred contestants had lied to the grand jury, although only seventeen of us were indicted, arrested, and arraigned. (None of us was sentenced to jail.) It brought back to me how we were marched through the streets of downtown New York (accompanied by photographers), forced to hand over our valuables, take off our belts and shoelaces, and get fingerprinted. I hadn’t remembered that this had happened to anyone but me; I suppose I’d been in shock. I do remember that it was hard to keep my trousers up, because I’d lost weight.
I also learned that when “Twenty-One” was first on it wasn’t rigged, and it was—therefore?—a failure. Herb Stempel was the first to agree to the fix; it was said that fifty million people watched us on the night when he “took a dive,” as he put it. I learned that Al Freedman eventually got an executive job at Penthouse International, and founded Penthouse’s spinoff magazine Forum; and that, after ten years or so, Barry and Enright were allowed to come back to television and resume their partnership with new programs.
I didn’t hear from Julian Krainin for a while. Then he telephoned to ask if he and his wife could drop by our house in Cornwall, Connecticut, because he had “great news.” Gerry wasn’t enthusiastic, but I said, “Why not? He won’t bite.”
The news this time was that Robert Redford was planning to make a feature film about the quiz shows and me. Krainin was a producer and Richard Goodwin was a co-producer. (In 1959, Goodwin had gone to work as a speechwriter for John F. Kennedy and, later, for his brother Robert.) Gerry was upset, but the more I thought about it the more I felt that it couldn’t really hurt. What the hell? Our children were grown, and we wouldn’t have to watch it.
Krainin returned a short time later. I asked what Redford wanted from me. After all, I pointed out, my story was in the public domain, and WGBH did perfectly well without me.
He told us how much Redford admired me and hoped for my help to make the film even better. And, as I recall, he added that Redford wanted my approval—my “guarantee of its truthfulness.” He said that Herb Stempel had already agreed to be a consultant, and when I asked what there might be in it for me he replied that the filmmakers would be willing to pay a fee—fifty thousand dollars. And that was how we left it, with Krainin promising to call me in a few days for a decision.
When Krainin called, he said, “I’m sending you a contract. The fee is higher—a hundred thousand dollars. You won’t have to do much. Bob really wants you on board.”
Our family had a meeting, sitting around our kitchen table. John, our son, was for my taking the money. “They’re going to make the movie anyway, whatever you do,” he said. “Everybody else is making money out of it, why shouldn’t you?”
Gerry agreed—they would say whatever they wanted—“But taking the money gives them a kind of license.” Liz, our daughter, tended to agree with Gerry. Sally, John’s wife, said it wasn’t her place to say anything.
I argued for it on the grounds that John had stated. Gerry, though, was adamant: “I don’t want to have anything to do with the whole thing. The film, the money . . . the money’s yours if you want it. But you won’t have me!” She added, “I’m not going to leave you, but you’ll be on your own.” She waited. “Please don’t be a fool.”
We decided to ask Sally’s father, Bill Van Cleve, the managing partner of the law firm of Bryan Cave, in St. Louis. He asked me to fax him the document and let him think about it.
The morning after our family meeting, I had to go to Litchfield, and I played a K. T. Oslin tape in my truck. A song on it called “Money” had the refrain “I don’t need money. All I need is you.” I played it again, then again. “Oh, Honey,” I said to myself, “I don’t need money, all I need is you.” Honey was Gerry’s family childhood name.
When I got home, Gerry told me that Bill had called. “He thought you’d be wrong to sign it,” she said. “The contract ties you up in knots. I told the children and I think they both agree.”
“He’s right, so are you, and I was wrong,” I said.
The contract lay on the table in the kitchen. I picked it up and tore it into pieces. Just at that moment, the phone rang. Gerry answered. “It’s him,” she said, and handed me the phone. After I’d told Krainin our decision, I hugged Gerry, held on to her for a long time. Finally, she squirmed out of my grasp. “Let go!”
“Never!” I said.
The film opened in 1994, but months before that a curious thing happened. A car turned in to our road and drew up alongside the house. “I’m lost,” the driver said. “Can you tell me how to find . . . ?” I realized later that he was Ralph Fiennes, who played me in the film. He told a reporter that he had driven by my house and had seen me looking “sad.”
http://www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil/Catalog/Heraldry.aspx?HeraldryId=15743&CategoryId=9360&grp=2&menu=Uniformed%20Services&ps=24&p=0
THE INSTITUTE OF HERALDRY
Office of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army
Flag Information
Medal of Honor Flag
Description
A light blue flag with gold fringe bearing thirteen white stars in a configuration as on the Medal of Honor ribbon.
Symbolism
The light blue color and white stars are adapted from the Medal of Honor ribbon. The flag commemorates the sacrifice and blood shed for our freedoms and gives emphasis to the Medal of Honor being the highest award for valor by an individual serving in the Armed Forces of the United States.
Background
Public Law 107-248, Section 8143, legislated the creation of a Medal of Honor Flag for presentation to each person to whom a Medal of Honor is awarded after the date of the enactment, October 23, 2002. A panel of eight members made of representatives from each Service (Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard), one Office of Secretary Defense staff, one historian and one representative from the Medal of Honor Society was formed to review and evaluate all designs submitted and make a final recommendation to the Principal Deputy to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. On 15 December 2004, the design submitted by Ms. Sarah LeClerc, Illustrator at The Institute of Heraldry was approved.
Public Law 109-364, Section 555, titled “Authority for Presentation of Medal of Honor Flag to Living Medal of Honor Recipients and to Living Primary Next-of-Kin of Deceased Medal of Honor Recipients,” dated October 17, 2006, established authority to award the Medal of Honor Flag, upon written request therefor, to the primary next of kin, as determined under regulations or procedures prescribed by the Secretary of Defense, of deceased Medal of Honor Recipients.
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/famous-cases/the-lindbergh-kidnapping
THE FBI FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
Famous Cases & Criminals
The Lindbergh Kidnapping
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., 20-month-old son of the famous aviator and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was kidnapped about 9:00 p.m., on March 1, 1932, from the nursery on the second floor of the Lindbergh home near Hopewell, New Jersey. The child’s absence was discovered and reported to his parents, who were then at home, at approximately 10:00 p.m. by the child’s nurse, Betty Gow. A search of the premises was immediately made and a ransom note demanding $50,000 was found on the nursery window sill. After the Hopewell police were notified, the report was telephoned to the New Jersey State Police, who assumed charge of the investigation.
Wanted Poster in 1932 Lindbergh KidnappingDuring the search at the kidnapping scene, traces of mud were found on the floor of the nursery. Footprints, impossible to measure, were found under the nursery window. Two sections of the ladder had been used in reaching the window, one of the two sections was split or broken where it joined the other, indicating that the ladder had broken during the ascent or descent. There were no blood stains in or about the nursery, nor were there any fingerprints.
Household and estate employees were questioned and investigated. Colonel Lindbergh asked friends to communicate with the kidnappers, and they made widespread appeals for the kidnappers to start negotiations. Various underworld characters were dealt with in attempts to contact the kidnappers, and numerous clues were advanced and exhausted.
A second ransom note was received by Colonel Lindbergh on March 6, 1932, (postmarked Brooklyn, New York, March 4), in which the ransom demand was increased to $70,000. A police conference was then called by the governor at Trenton, New Jersey, which was attended by prosecuting officials, police authorities, and government representatives. Various theories and policies of procedure were discussed. Private investigators also were employed by Colonel Lindbergh’s attorney, Colonel Henry Breckenridge.
The third ransom note was received by Colonel Lindbergh’s attorney on March 8, informing that an intermediary appointed by the Lindberghs would not be accepted and requesting a note in a newspaper. On the same date, Dr. John F. Condon, Bronx, New York City, a retired school principal, published in the “Bronx Home News” an offer to act as go-between and to pay an additional $1,000 ransom. The following day the fourth ransom note was received by Dr. Condon, which indicated he would be acceptable as a go-between. This was approved by Colonel Lindbergh. About March 10, 1932, Dr. Condon received $70,000 in cash as ransom, and immediately started negotiations for payment through newspaper columns, using the code name “Jafsie.”
About 8:30 p.m., on March 12, after receiving an anonymous telephone call, Dr. Condon received the fifth ransom note, delivered by Joseph Perrone, a taxicab driver, who received it from an unidentified stranger. The message stated that another note would be found beneath a stone at a vacant stand, 100 feet from an outlying subway station. This note, the sixth, was found by Condon, as indicated. Following instructions therein, the doctor met an unidentified man, who called himself “John,” at Woodlawn Cemetery, near 233rd Street and Jerome Avenue. They discussed payment of the ransom money. The stranger agreed to furnish a token of the child’s identity. Condon was accompanied by a bodyguard, except while talking to “John.” During the next few days, Dr. Condon repeated his advertisements, urging further contact and stating his willingness to pay the ransom.
A baby’s sleeping suit, as a token of identity, and a seventh ransom note were received by Dr. Condon on March 16. The suit was delivered to Colonel Lindbergh and later identified. Condon continued his advertisements. The eighth ransom note was received by Condon on March 21, insisting on complete compliance and advising that the kidnapping had been planned for a year.
On March 29, Betty Gow, the Lindbergh nurse, found the infant’s thumb guard, worn at the time of the kidnapping, near the entrance to the estate. The following day the ninth ransom note was received by Condon, threatening to increase the demand to $100,000 and refusing a code for use in newspaper columns. The tenth ransom note, received by Dr. Condon, on April 1, 1932 instructed him to have the money ready the following night, to which Condon replied by an ad in the Press. The eleventh ransom note was delivered to Condon on April 2, 1932, by an unidentified taxi driver who said he received it from an unknown man. Dr. Condon found the twelfth ransom note under a stone in front of a greenhouse at 3225 East Tremont Avenue, Bronx, New York, as instructed in the eleventh note.
Shortly thereafter, on the same evening, by following the instructions contained in the twelfth note, Condon again met whom he believed to be “John” to reduce the demand to $50,000. This amount was handed to the stranger in exchange for a receipt and the thirteenth note, containing instructions to the effect that the kidnapped child could be found on a boat named “Nellie” near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The stranger then walked north into the park woods. The following day an unsuccessful search for the baby was made near Martha’s Vineyard. The search was later repeated. Dr. Condon was positive that he would recognize “John” if he ever saw him again.
On May 12, 1932, the body of the kidnapped baby was accidentally found, partly buried, and badly decomposed, about four and a half miles southeast of the Lindbergh home, 45 feet from the highway, near Mount Rose, New Jersey, in Mercer County. The discovery was made by William Allen, an assistant on a truck driven by Orville Wilson. The head was crushed, there was a hole in the skull and some of the body members were missing. The body was positively identified and cremated at Trenton, New Jersey, on May 13, 1932. The Coroner’s examination showed that the child had been dead for about two months and that death was caused by a blow on the head.
http://www.tv.com/shows/30-days/outsourcing-815840/
tv.com
30 Days Season 2 Episode 2
Outsourcing
Aired Wednesday 10:00 PM Aug 02, 2006 on Planet Green
AIRED: 8/2/06
1975 film "Three Days of the Condor" DVD video:
00:19:40
Taxi driver: For christ's sake what the hell you doing, Mac? Do your sleeping at night, will you?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073802/releaseinfo
IMDb
Three Days of the Condor (1975)
Release Info
USA 24 September 1975 (New York City, New York)
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=55460
The American Presidency Project
William J. Clinton
XLII President of the United States: 1993-2001
Letter to Congressional Leaders Transmitting a Plan and Report on Reorganization of the Foreign Affairs Agencies
December 29, 1998
Dear __________:
I hereby submit the reorganization plan and report required by section 1601 of the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-277, Division G). As required by the Act, the reorganization plan and report describe how the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the United States Information Agency, and portions of the United States Agency for International Development will be integrated into the Department of State.
Sincerely,
WILLIAM J. CLINTON
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119942/releaseinfo
IMDb
Primary Colors (1998)
Release Info
USA 20 March 1998
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119942/fullcredits
IMDb
Primary Colors (1998)
Full Cast & Crew
John Travolta ... Governor Jack Stanton
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119942/taglines
IMDb
Primary Colors (1998)
Taglines
How Much Spin Does It Take To Win?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068768/releaseinfo
IMDb
Joe Kidd (1972)
Release Info
USA 14 July 1972
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068768/fullcredits
IMDb
Joe Kidd (1972)
Full Cast & Crew
Clint Eastwood ... Joe Kidd
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069515/releaseinfo
IMDb
The Wrath of God (1972)
Release Info
USA 14 July 1972 (New York City, New York)
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=13997
The American Presidency Project
Harry S. Truman
XXXIII President of the United States: 1945-1953
299 - Statement by the President on Establishing the Committee on Government Contract Compliance.
December 3, 1951
I HAVE today signed an Executive order creating the Committee on Government Contract Compliance.
The purpose of this order is to secure better compliance by contractors and subcontractors with certain provisions now required in their contracts with the U.S. Government. For nearly 10 years it has been mandatory to include in such contracts a clause obligating the contractor to practice nondiscrimination in the performance of his contract. The clause specifically forbids discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin; relates to the various aspects of employment; and extends to subcontracts as well as to original contracts.
The inclusion of this nondiscrimination clause in Government contracts has been helpful in reducing the practice of discrimination. In the past, however, compliance has not been secured by any system of uniform regulation, or inspection, common to all the contracting agencies of the Federal Government, and widely understood by contractors and their employees.
The present order is designed to correct this deficiency. It places the primary responsibility for securing compliance with the nondiscrimination clause with the head of each contracting agency of the Federal Government. This is as it should be, for this is where the primary responsibility rests for securing compliance with contractual provisions generally. The same means used to obtain compliance generally can be used by the contracting agencies to obtain compliance with the nondiscrimination clause. The Committee will be expected to examine and study the compliance procedures now in use and to recommend to the department and agency heads changes that will strengthen them. As part of its functions, the Committee may confer with interested persons. Recommendations of this Committee are subject to review under certain conditions by the Director of Defense Mobilization, so that our efforts towards eliminating discrimination in employment will at all times aid in increasing defense production.
The creation of this Committee on Government Contract Compliance is one more. step in the program I have undertaken to use the powers conferred on the Executive by the Constitution and the statutes to eliminate the practice of discrimination in connection with activities of the Federal Government. The Fair Employment Board of the Civil Service Commission carries this responsibility with respect to the Federal Government as an employer. The President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services pointed the way toward ending discrimination in our fighting forces. In fulfilling a contract with the Federal Government a contractor should follow the national policy of equal treatment and opportunity. It is my hope and my belief that the Committee on Government Contract Compliance will show us the way.
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20020917&slug=dige17m
Tuesday, September 17, 2002
Local Digest
Gates family adds baby girl
SEATTLE — Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, are parents for the third time.
Phoebe Adelle Gates was born Saturday at Overlake Hospital Medical Center in Bellevue. The birth was announced yesterday.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068229/releaseinfo
IMDb
The Astronaut (1972 TV Movie)
Release Info
USA 8 January 1972
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZHZsJ7wdvE&list=PL9F16134937749910
YouTube
The Astronaut (1972)
ABC Movie of the week
00:40:18
Gail Randolph: Stop it! Stop looking at me with his face!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thank_God,_It's_Doomsday
Thank God, It's Doomsday
"Thank God, It's Doomsday" is the nineteenth episode of The Simpsons' sixteenth season. The episode aired for the first time on May 8, 2005, in the US.
This causes many of Springfield's residents to believe that Homer is right in predicting that at 3:15 p.m. on May 18, the apocalypse will come, and so the believers follow him to the Springfield Mesa to wait for it.
http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Made-up_words
Simpsons
Throughhole
A type of road of relatively unknown description; it could be a combination of a thruway and a tunnel.
In the episode "Thank God It's Doomsday" there are two references to a road leading out of Springfield called the Warren Harding Memorial Throughhole.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_G._Harding
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th President of the United States
http://www.tv.com/shows/the-simpsons/thank-god-its-doomsday-384298/trivia/
tv.com
The Simpsons Season 16 Episode 19
Thank God, It's Doomsday
Aired Sunday 8:00 PM May 08, 2005 on FOX
Quotes
(As Homer walks the streets proclaiming the imminent Rapture)
Marge: Homer, I'm glad you're finally getting some exercise, but I just wish it wasn't crazy exercise.
http://www.tv.com/shows/the-simpsons/thank-god-its-doomsday-384298/trivia/
tv.com
The Simpsons Season 16 Episode 19
Thank God, It's Doomsday
Aired Sunday 8:00 PM May 08, 2005 on FOX
Quotes
Homer Simpson: In a world gone mad only a lunatic is truly insane.
http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=the-simpsons&episode=s16e19
Springfield! Springfield!
The Simpsons
Thank God, It's Doomsday
[ God: ] Don't tell me about family suffering. My Son went down to Earth once. I don't know what you people did to Him, but He hasn't been the same since.
http://www.divxmoviesenglishsubtitles.com/G/Gremlins.html
Gremlins
This is what's left of my imported Bavarian snowman.
http://www.tv.com/shows/the-simpsons/a-star-is-torn-405065/trivia/
tv.com
The Simpsons Season 16 Episode 18
A Star Is Torn
Aired Sunday 8:00 PM May 08, 2005 on FOX
Quotes
(Apu is being robbed)
Apu: Call the police.
Homer: I need change for a dollar.
Apu: No change without purchase.
Homer: What's the cheapest thing you've got.
Apu: A two ounce pack of chips. $5.99.
Homer: $5.99, what a rip-off! Someone should shoot you.
http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=impostor
Springfield! Springfield!
Impostor (2002)
It would've massacred us all.
You know that, Spencer.
Major!
Major!
Major!
Yes.
Oh, God...
If that's Olham...
- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 2:54 PM Pacific Time Spokane Valley Washington USA Monday 17 August 2015
